


Salt

by hafren



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-26
Updated: 2009-11-26
Packaged: 2017-10-03 18:41:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hafren/pseuds/hafren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The revolution is going well, even after Gauda Prime, and Blake and Avon are off for a nice holiday. But you knew it wouldn't be that simple...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Salt

I can taste it in the air, feel it on my skin. My hair is heavy with it. We've only been on deck about an hour but the air is fresh, blowing it in our faces. Not that he notices.

Years ago, I recall Vila objecting to some story that ended "happily ever after". He claimed phrases like that were an invitation to a very large rock to fall on you out of the sky. Well, he was right. There are no happy endings.

I left a man I'd been quarrelling with for years, and stayed away, even when I knew he was looking for me. Then one day, while I was trying to work out why living and working with reasonable, amenable people was so damn dull, it dawned on me that I loved the bastard. And everything fell into place. What could be simpler? I'll put out feelers, start using my real name again, let it be known where I am. And he'll come to find me, and I'll rush towards him with open arms. All sorted. Happy ending.

And while I was recovering from the bullet wounds, he had his own revelation. That he needed me to be alive, that a world without me was worthless to him. That I was like a fixed star in the universe and that the mere thought I might have betrayed him was like waking up and finding the sun gone. And because he felt he owed me, and because the last thing he wanted to do was tell me all that, he told me it, and much more, in a low, clear, anguished voice that sent shock-waves of delight through me and washed away the memory of pain and anger. That's it. Understood. Together for ever. What could go wrong with that? Where would you like to start?

I still say the next idea I had was basically a good one. Among my people, and our allies, there was still a lot of hostility towards him. They didn't trust him, and they didn't see how I could. Even his repentance, than which nothing could have been more genuine, failed to convince them. The commitment ceremony - marriage, if you like - was necessary, a very public statement that I could and did trust him totally. He went through all the celebrations perfectly, a little pale and serious but smiling in all the right places.

When we were finally alone, I hugged him. "Thank you. I know you don't like making public demonstrations of anything. Thanks for doing it anyway, love."

He winced a bit, probably at the endearment, and said lightly, "Anything for the cause."

"Hey. I didn't ask you to do it just for that, you know. I love you, damn it. I want to be with you." I took his face in my hands. "Don't you believe me?" I smiled at him and his tired eyes lit briefly.

"Oh, yes. I believe you didn't do it just for that." He glanced at the communicator on the table. "But we both know what will happen if the revolution suddenly has need of you."

I walked over and switched it off. "Not tonight. The revolution can wait till morning."

"Then I had better make the most of it." Though his voice had all the teasing charm he was sometimes so good at, there was something else in his smile, something sadder. It wasn't until hours later, with him asleep in my arms, that I realised it was gratitude. I looked over at the communicator, wishing I'd left the visual display on so that I could see if anyone was trying to contact me, and felt as guilty as hell. But it gave me another idea.

Next day, as soon as I could make time, I went to the communications centre and put it to him. "Look, I know politics takes a lot of my time and attention, and I know you'd rather it didn't. And in the long run there isn't much I can do about that. But what if I take you away for a couple of weeks? For a holiday?" (I knew what he'd think of the word "honeymoon"). "Somewhere nobody can get in touch, where there's just us?"

"Quality time?" He raised his eyebrows. "Yes, it might be fun. Though how you propose to get beyond reach of all this.......?"

"Oh, that's easy. Trust me." And he had to. Even in the space cruiser I didn't tell him where we were going, not until we had to transfer to the shuttle to land.

"This place hasn't got a spaceport that can take anything above a shuttle?" His eyes narrowed, then widened. "A conserved world? Blake, they cost a fortune to visit!"

"I've got a fortune. Well, a small one. Never mind how." Mostly through Jenna actually, but I knew that if I told him just how lucrative her smuggling operation had been, he'd want to start it up again.

I'd read up on everything, but it still came as a surprise. The underground rail that took us from the shuttle-port was fairly normal, but we came out into a city of grey granite, with traffic on its streets that only the likes of Sarkoff would have recognised.

He looked around, and his brow furrowed. "Low-tech, yes, but hardly beyond the reach of communication, I'd have thought."

"True. But we aren't finished travelling yet." I turned his shoulder slightly and showed him the harbour, and the ship waiting. "Where we're going is a night's sailing away on that. When you wake up in the morning, I guarantee you'll be in a different world."

The bunks were nowhere near wide enough to share, and he wasn't in the mood anyway. I'd brought pills, but the sea was rough and it really seemed to get to him. Whenever I opened an eye, he was either lying on his bunk, clutching the rail and staring at the ceiling, or prowling the cabin. In the end he muttered something about wanting some air and went out. I turned over and slept, hoping this wasn't all going to go wrong.

When I woke, his bunk was still empty. I got dressed and went on deck. The ship's motion was calmer now, because we were travelling alongside a chain of islands. It was a bright morning and the sea glittered. There were grey and white birds following the ship, calling. Every so often one would dive straight into the water, in a shower of light, and come up with fish. As I watched, something else leapt from the water in an arc, some sea-mammal with a long, sinuous black body. As it curved, the sun made rainbows in the water that streamed off it.

He was leaning on the rail at the front of the ship, watching the islands go past. On the right was one with a huge black cliff and a lighthouse. On the left was a grassy headland with a graveyard, the little stones very white against the green. The ship sailed through the narrow channel between and turned slightly as it rounded the headland.

I came up behind him and took his shoulders, and he relaxed against me. His clothes and hair were stiff with salt.

"That's where." I pointed to the little fishing-port we were manoeuvring into. He half-turned towards me, and I kissed him. "God, you taste salty. How long have you been out here?"

"I saw the sun rise." He was smiling.

"Well, get back to the cabin. We're docking soon and you need a shower first. It'll take me ages to get all that salt off you." I licked some off the back of his neck, to give him an idea how, and he smiled even more.

******

He couldn't believe the island. A few miles of land around an improbably deep, perfect natural harbour that had given the islanders their livelihood since anyone could recall. The serpentine and haematite of its rocks, that glistened like diamond. The one dark, tiny shop that opened three days a week to sell little more than basics. The newspapers - newspapers! - that came from the mainland a day late, except the Sunday ones, which never came at all. The old cottage we were renting, with the peat stack we had to use to start the fire - he complained about that, until he discovered he was better at setting it than I was - and the big box bed in the living-room wall, with its door that drew shut behind us, and about which he did not complain.

Lying invisible in the warm, close dark that always smelled of peat-smoke, I would feel him relax totally. I'd whisper things he would have barred, if we'd been able to see each other's faces. The first night we were there, though he protested he trusted me, I'd made him come all round the house confirming there was no means of off-planet communication in it. He already knew I hadn't brought anything; we'd been searched on the shuttle. They keep inappropriate stuff off the few conserved worlds like you would a virus. Even with visitor numbers strictly kept down, the tourist income is massive and there's the research value to be considered too.

Hauling that sack of potatoes back from the shop was no fun, and neither was cleaning the fish. But they tasted unbelievable, as even he admitted. He had more of an appetite than I'd ever known him to; he'd have put on weight, if he hadn't been getting so much exercise.

The woman next door, Merran, gave us the fish, and showed us how to clean it. The islanders depended a lot on fish; in the summer there was more than they needed and they'd share it around, or cure it for winter. She had two washing-lines in her garden, one for clothes and one for fish, no kidding, all these shrivelled-looking fish drying on the line. Then she'd hang it over the fire till it was smoked, and it'd last her the winter. I suspect it tasted better fresh, myself.

Half the time, during the day, I didn't know where he was. Back on our base, he tended to shadow me; if I was gone too long, he'd come looking. But here he seemed to be able to let me out of his sight without worrying. The island was nearly all common land; you could wander almost anywhere and he did. Luckily it was a small island, so I could always find him.

Once I found him lying on the rocks by the north shore, and he turned and smiled. "Come and see this".

I sat down beside him. "What am I looking at?"

"The waves, when they hit those rocks over there. Look." It was something to see, all right. The surf was flung up really high; at first it'd be pure white and then at the last moment it would dissolve into a curtain of mist with rainbows in it, like I'd seen from the ship.

"Maybe we could get a bit closer," I said, looking at a little grassy plateau near the rocks, just on the edge of the spray. He followed my gaze and then looked up into my eyes, his face alight. I took his hand and pulled him to his feet and he came with me. I have made love in more comfortable places. But the sound of the waves, and the sudden needles of cold from that fine mist, were something to remember.

There was a flower that grew all over that island, a head of pink on a short stalk. They were in such masses, it was like a shimmer of pink light just above the ground; it seemed almost a shame to walk on it. "I wonder what it's called," I said one day, when we were sitting on the hill above the harbour.

"Merran calls it sea-pink," he said, picking up a glittering piece of serpentine in his hand and turning it to catch the light. "But Jarm says its proper name is thrift." Jarm was the man who ran the shop, when he wasn't fishing.

He was staring out at the harbour, at the jetty where the fishing-boats came in. Our time was nearly up; in a couple of days it would be the ferry tied up there, waiting to take us back to the shuttle-port and real life. Much as I liked the place, and being alone with him, the thought gave me a buzz of excitement. I'd enjoyed the time out, but I was ready to go back.

He reached out and touched my face; turning to him, I saw he was watching me intently. His finger traced along my lips. I grinned. "It's a bit public up here." But he shook his head, pulling me back over the ridge, away from the harbour, and we rolled into a little dip full of heather and grass and the inevitable pink flowers. It was still fairly public, to be honest; anyone could have come by. Maybe that made it more exciting, I don't know. I'd never seen him so frenzied; he kissed my hair, my eyes, my neck, every inch he could get to, and then he'd turn and bury his face in the heather-bells and come back to me with the scent of them on him. When he pulled me down to him, it was as if he wanted to make love to me and the place all at once.

It was over too soon, but it was awesome. I lay for a while afterwards, dizzy with the scent of the flowers, before I managed to get up. I held my hand out to him and we went down the hill together, over the pink haze. "What was that you said it was called, thrift? That's an odd name for a flower. Doesn't it mean saving, not wasting things?"

I spent most of the last afternoon packing. I seemed to be doing it single-handed; he was off wandering round the island somewhere, but I didn't mind. When he came back, he had a bunch of stones and shells with him, and even a couple of birds' skulls, bone-white and delicate, little cages of tracery. He laid them out on the table.

I looked up. "You know you can't take any of those with you? Everything in these places is protected; they'll search us again on the shuttle."

"I know. I'll take them back down to the beach before we go." He picked up each one in turn, holding it, stroking it, laying it to his cheek.

I suppose I should have worked it out. He was so quiet. But I didn't, not then. The ferry came about seven; there was still a fair bit of light, though the sky was just beginning to be flushed with sunset. We leaned over the back rail, saying goodbye to the harbour as the ship pulled out. I put my arm around his shoulders and felt a tremor.

"Are you cold?" He shook his head, not taking his eyes from the harbour. He was letting his gaze sweep the whole wide arc of it and beyond, looking intently at every house, hillside, field, every pebble in the clear water. His face was very pale.

"Oh, my dear." I hugged him from behind, holding him close. "You really love this place, don't you? You don't want to leave?"

He swallowed, "I want to be where you are. And I want to be here. Where I was with you."

I held him tighter, rocking a bit, while he clenched his hands on the rail and kept looking, as if he could imprint the place on his eyes. "Listen," I said, "I know there's nothing fair about this. You're following me to where you don't want to go, because you love me and you've got no choice. I know. But I promise, when this is all done, when the revolution's over and things are as they should be, then I'll follow you. You can bring us back here. I promise, this isn't going to be the last time you see this place. I swear it."

I knew I would make that true, if I could. And I knew how empty it must sound. When the revolution's over. If, more bloody like. And if I'm still alive. I could read his eyes, for once; a place isn't just a place but a moment in time. The place where he'd been with me, been all there was with or for me. And nobody can go back, because the same moment never comes twice.

I don't know that I regret coming here. Maybe he wouldn't either; he will have the memory. But what he's got now is grief and loss, a place and a moment fading into distance as he watches. I wish he would turn into my arms and let me hug him, but he won't turn away while he can still see anything of the island, and the only thing I can do is stay out here with him. The harbour is long gone; we've rounded the headland, but in the failing daylight we can still make out the white headstones on the bluff. He's looking at them hungrily, maybe envying the tenants, who can stay here for always. It's getting very cold, though I don't think the shivering in his body has much to do with that. The headstones won't show for much longer, but on the other side of the channel the lighthouse is flashing. We'll still be able to see that for another half-hour, maybe, and he'll be able to trace across to where he knows our island is, even though he can't see it.

I wrap my arms about him as close as I can, feeling the crust of salt from his coat scrape against my hands.


End file.
